Eight confirmed or probable cases of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) this year in Texas. On Tuesday, officials in Minnesota said they have seen six cases. They typically see zero to one cases of AFM per year, on average. ABC News reports nine cases were diagnosed recently in Illinois, five cases in Washington state, and a single case was confirmed in Wisconsin. Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM) is now in multiple states!!! All would have been diagnosed as polio in the 50’s. All of them.

CNN says, The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a spike in a mysterious polio-like illness, confirmed this year in nearly half of the states in the country. Most of the cases are in children. Like polio, AFM affects the body’s nervous system — specifically, the spinal cord — and can cause paralysis. What we do not know: the exact cause of the illness, though scientists think it is most likely the result of a viral infection. Other potential culprits include environmental toxins, genetic disorders and Guillain-Barré syndrome, according to the CDC. The CDC said there have been 362 cases of AFM recorded in the U.S. from 2014 to 2018.

Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM) is a variant or sub-type of transverse myelitis. AFM is inflammation of the spinal cord and generally presents with unique clinical and MRI features that are not typical of classical transverse myelitis. AFM abnormalities noted on MRI are predominantly found in the gray matter of the spinal cord. In 2013, an outbreak of what is now believed to be this sub-type of transverse myelitis occurred in California and more cases were reported in the summer and fall of 2014 across the United States. The enterovirus (EV-D68) has been suspect in many of these cases however, it has not been definitively proven that it is this particular virus that has caused the paralysis,1 although several cases of AFM occurred at around the same time as an outbreak of the EV-D68 virus.